Game Description:Experience all the sights and sounds of fabulous Fallout: New Vegas, brought to you by Vault-Tec, America's First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation. Explore the treacherous wastes of the Great Southwest from the safety and comfort of your very own vault: Meet new people, confront terrifying creatures, and arm yourself with the latest high-tech weaponry as you make a name for yourself on a thrilling new journey across the Mojave wasteland. A word of warning, however - while Vault-Tec engineers have prepared for every contingency,* in Vegas, fortunes can change in an instant. Enjoy your stay. Fallout: New Vegas serves an interesting view of Sin City.
* Should not be construed as a legally-binding claim.

Fallout: New Vegas Review

While the story may not be as gripping, and the technical execution may not be as polished, Fallout: New Vegas is well worth the purchase for any fan of the franchise, whether you've played Fallout 3 or not.

The Pros

More great fallout-style gameplay

Dozens of hours of content

A useful and robust companion system

Captivating faction dynamics

The Cons

Incredibly, inexcusably glitchy

Slowly paced, underwhelming side-quests

Lacks an emotionally gripping single-player story

As the saying goes, war never changes, and if the newest entry in the post-apocalypic series is any example, neither does Fallout.

Fallout: New Vegas isn’t so much a sequel to Fallout 3 as it is an elaborate piece of DLC. It looks and plays the same as its praiseworthy predecessor, but fans looking for a wholly new, leveled-up experience will instead find a very familiar, if somewhat redressed, adventure. And it begins, as many great stories do, with a death…your own.

A Soft, Quiet “Pop” in the Midnight Desert

After a bullet tears through your skull in the middle of a mid-Mojave business transaction, you’re hastily dumped into a grave -- slug still in your skull -- only to be unearthed and revived sometime later by a drifting robot. A doctor in the nearby town of Goodsprings nurses you back to health, and it’s here where players will determine their physical appearance and undergo psychological testing that will determine their initial skill distribution. The skills (Strength, Intelligence, Luck, Perception, etc.) are essentially the same as in the previous game, although New Vegas brings back the Traits fromFallout 2, a selection of parameters that offer both sizeable advantages and equal disadvantages. You can choose two of these, or none, depending upon the trade-offs you’re willing to make.

You’ll quickly remember that you were a hired-gun courier, one of several tasked with moving some seemingly random objects from point-to-point throughout the desert, including a platinum casino chip that was stolen after your “murder.” The significance of that chip, and its role in a larger conspiracy leading to the very top of the New Vegas criminal hierarchy, forms the remainder of the story; it’s a kind of post-apocalyptic Scorsese film.

The game starts abruptly, however, lacking the measured process of your birth and childhood in Fallout 3’s Vault 101. As a consequence, you’re thrust into the desert with no real sense of purpose or connection other than to find the man who put the bullet so gingerly in your dome. Some players will no doubt appreciate this expedience while others, such as myself, will feel a lack of emotional development or discovery. There’s no emerging moment. There’s no point when you climb up from the darkness into a massive, sun-baked landscape with a single, emotional goal. In Fallout 3, it was finding your father. Rather, New Vegas starts with a literal bang, pats you carelessly on the backside and says, “You’re on your own.”

As always, the player is free to shape their moral space in the world, but at least in the first eight or ten hours of New Vegas, the lines aren’t quite so black or white. Your “good” and “bad” choices aren’t particularly well articulated, and the world unfolds at a much slower, sometimes clumsier, pace than in previous games. It’ll take you awhile to get your bearings amongst the various players and townships; however, once you hit hour 15, you’ll no doubt feel rooted in the universe and properly equipped to make your way through it.

This Pack of Rats

The world of Fallout: New Vegas is as loaded with groups and sub-groups, allegiances and shifting alliances. The New California Republic – or NCR – is a semi-benevolent military organization attempting to both restore peace in the region and hold their control of the all-important power plant, the Hoover Dam. However, this has come with the cost of some hasty, uninformed military decisions that have led to a high civilian body count and placed a heavy demand on those innocent wastelanders left to make a living off land that the NCR is rapidly annexing.

Meanwhile, an army of neo-Roman centurions known as Ceasar’s Legion has been amassing strength and numbers with an eye on seizing the Dam and taking control of New Vegas and the surrounding territories. The Legion is generally a ruthless, power hungry gang of exceptionally well-trailed militiamen -- yes, garbed in full Roman regalia -- whose willingness to scorch the earth and all who live on it is only rivaled by their lust for the land itself.

Lesser groups in the wasteland consist of your usual Raiders and Fiends who’ll provide “good” players with bounty missions and “bad” players with less well-intentioned tasks. More organized gangs, like the Powder Gangers (two-bit, wanna-be convicts and thugs) are eclipsed by larger, more predatory gangs like the Khans: the equivalent of a post-War biker gang, peddling drugs and stims to the strung out masses of New Vegas. Later, in Vegas proper, the gangs find themselves a bit more organized: from the 50’s-inspired, slicked-back Kings, all the way into the mafia-esque nature of the elite who rule the Strip and everybody in it.

Fallout: New Vegas includes a slightly revamped Infamy system that will gain you either status or disdain with each group depending upon the quests you tackle or how many members of their gang you’ve left for dead in the desert. It’s a unique system that will open or close sub-quests depending upon your leanings, but the game’s armor system is more likely to get you into trouble than out of it.

You can collect the allied armor of any gang member you kill and wear it to help infiltrate enemy camps. It’s a useful strategy when planning out your missions, but considering that there’s relatively little neutral, non-allied armor in the game -- and even fewer places to purchase it -- you’ll likely find yourself wearing faction armor simply for protection. The downside, of course, comes when you accidentally stumble upon a friendly faction who believes you to be their enemy and attacks, forcing you to defend yourself and gain some unintentional Infamy.

Hedging Your Bets

Also new to New Vegas (or maybe old, so to speak) is the return of the crafting system from previous chapters. In addition to the familiar work benches, campfire crafting allows players to with sufficient skill to break down and re-combine scrap objects into workable ammo, stimpaks, etc. It’s a worthwhile addition for the junk collectors of the world, as well as those who generally put more value on Repair, Science and Intellect than on Guns, Lockpicking or Strength; however, if you acquire a few choice Perks throughout the game, it will hardly be necessary given the amount of equipment you’ll discover in ammo boxes and lockers.

Managing your resources will ultimately be as important to your survival as finding and selecting an appropriate companion. The friend system in New Vegas is a more pronounced component than in the last chapter and incredibly helpful along your journey. In some senses, the tweaked companion mechanic, which offers an intuitive wheel of selectable commands, is the greatest success of New Vegas. My chosen counterpart -- an NCR sniper named Boone -- proved invaluable in battle and the fact that you gain the XP from your friend’s kills only helps to sweeten the deal. In addition, your companions will open up deeper, more interpersonal storylines as your time with them grows, and it’s entirely possible that your followers will illicit a more emotional connection than any single event in the single-player campaign.

Fear and Loathing

As with any Fallout game, the single-player storyline is secondary to the myriad of sub-quests that you’ll discover as you explore the wastelands. The various gangs and groups will open and close possible missions depending upon your standing, but either way, there’s a huge amount to see and do in the Mojave. That said, the quality of the writing in New Vegas – which is to say, the degree to which these stories will compel you as you play through them – is only a scant shadow of what players have come to expect from Fallout 3.

Where missions in Fallout 3 might have you protecting a besieged town only to journey underground in search of vampires, New Vegas offers a fairly unaffecting selection of fetch quests, bounties and paint-by-numbers rigmarole. The constant back-and-forth between the various factions can become politically tiring if you’re simply looking to aid or thwart real, everyday folks out in the waste.

There are a few choice quests that feel close to the quality of Fallout 3, but these come later in the game, assuming you follow the general progression that the story suggests. If you like to head out wandering into the wastes and somehow avoid being overpowered by criminals and critters, you may encounter a few of these sooner rather than later.

Overall, questing in New Vegas is a lot of fun, and your inner explorer will no doubt be satisfied, but with the exception of a few choice quests, it’ll mostly feel like going through the motions. While the total landmass feels smaller, the world is jam-packed with locations, but whereas almost every building in Fallout 3 featured some associated quest, here, you’ll come across a large handful of structures with no real purpose aside from looting and exploration. Also, certain missions will only be added to your miscellaneous notes, not to your quest log, so managing some of the less defined goals can occasionally be a hassle.

You’ll also notice as you pass through the landscape that the look of the game, while graphically identical to Fallout 3, is much less involving. Long, open stretches of painted desert present a nice-to-look-at vista, but the Mojave simply lacks the character of the sprawling ruins of Washington, DC. Also, the flat nature of the landscape occasionally highlights a persistent pop-in problem as you’re moving across an empty field only to have a building appear directly in front of you. Interiors, as well, appear virtually no different than in the previous title, composed of the same ol’ textures whether you’re in a warehouse, factory or underground cave.

Let’s Get Glitched in Vegas

Perhaps the biggest, most substantive criticism of Fallout: New Vegas is that it’s glitchy. Not just annoying so, but utterly, game-breakingly glitchy. In a massive, marathon play-through (before the game’s official launch), the game crashed five times in a 26 hour period, often in the middle of the action during vital moments.

Quest markers were placed in random locations totally unassociated with the active quest. Mailboxes transformed into distending, amorphous blobs that moved about the environment and were identified as Radscorpions. Townsfolk and enemies floated above the ground, often passing through each other. Key characters ran off into the wilderness for no discernable reason, directly to their deaths at the hands of the local bestiary. Several times, my character was whisked away on a train ride to The Strip when he wasn’t even on the train.

These aren’t small, insignificant problems, and while issues with a game as massive as this are to be expected, there’s an obvious lack of quality control here for a property with the Bethesda brand stamped across the front.

You Are Now Leaving…

At the end of the day, however, this is a Fallout game, offering players a huge, populated universe to explore and dozens of hours worth of questing and leveling that’ll speak to any RPG gamer.

While the story may not be as gripping, and the technical execution may not be as polished, it’s well worth the purchase for any fan of the franchise, whether you’ve played Fallout 3 or not. While Bethesda is off developing the next Elder Scrolls title…or Fallout 4…or whatever it is they’re presently creating, the Obsidian-developed Fallout: New Vegas is a worthwhile, if flawed, appetizer for the anxious masses.

Comments are Closed

Cons: Glitchy..Yes it is..but can easily be worked out Underwhelming side quests...You want harder side quests?..play hardcore mode..Non Emotional single player..Seriously..Not all games require something that would make you feel bad about the main character or even make you cry for that matter..not all games are supposed to be emotional..i enjoy emotional storylines..but they are not necassary..So pretty much..I believe this game actually deserved a 5/5

I bought New Vegas when it was only $20. If you had told me that it was a mod made by an amateur game designer I would have been very impressed. But it was made by Obsidian and Bethesda. The game is full of C class bugs, graphical clipping, objects that can't be interacted with because someone was too lazy to give them the ability to be added to your inventory, crashing, quest glitching, NPC body issues(think contortionist), the list goes on and on. And this is AFTER the patching has occurred. Meaning when this game got it's 4/5 score it was WORSE than it is now! Are you kidding me?

One of the "pros" listed for this title is "Dozens of hours of content" but then you have the Con: "Slowly paced, underwhelming side-quests." Those hours of content have to come from somewhere. Oh right, the slow paced underwhelming side-quests. So what you're saying is thumbs up for hours of game content, too bad you won't be enjoying yourself while playing.

I have seen Xplay eviscerate games with more polish, better storylines, better acting, and better gameplay than New Vegas. Not to mention games that didn't have nearly as much money grubbing DLC pushing bull..

Remember bottlecap mines? Wanna make em in New Vegas. Well sh--t we forgot to put enough cherry bombs in the game to make that feasible. We also introduced the campfires for creating your own chems but didn't give you ANY place to harvest cave fungus for making hydra. (Yes there was a patch to get them as drops from legionaries, but after killing 50 or so and getting 2 -_- I rest my case)But fear not you can buy cherry bombs and lunch boxes from Joshua Graham in the Honest Hearts Expansion Pack!And in that same expansion we put a cave FULL of f'ing fungus! Isn't that a coincidence? Two HUGE flaws fixed through DLC and you only have to pay $10.

If I saw a person with an arm full of cold pills I'd say "That person is probably making meth" from the above examples I say "Bethesda is trying to extort money from me."

You release a buggy piece of crap and turn your PAYING customers into unpaid game testers. When the complaining on forums reaches critical mass you finally fix some of the issues and then "fix" the rest with DLC.

New Vegas's review just proves Xplay sells good reviews to the highest bidder.

I think the reviews should be re written for the patches made through the various updates I had all the same problems as you guys out of the box but with the latest update the only problem Ive had is my ps3 phat crashing

I actually just got the game like a month ago because I played it at my cousins house one day an I fell in love. I dont like entering games in the sequels so of course I hesitated when it came out. Now that I own it I cant stop playing it when its in my PS3, Ihave seen minimal glitches and have played through the story from easy and normal, and now playing through on hardcore and taking my time with the story this round. I do have to say though you kinda do have to start snlt to be able to use your weapons, not enough shooting unless you do.

I really love this game, but I agree with a 4/5 rating. Not for the same reasons but because the game had worse graphics than Fallout 3 which really bugged me. Then again this is just a spin off (a good one). I know that Fallout 4 will change everything for the better after Skyrim comes out. Bethesda is going to make it awesome. I'm thinking a 3rd person cover system would do nicely, and to make weapons and ammo more scarce but a lot more realisticly powerfull.

After countless poor reviews I waited until the price dropped. The pros and Cons in this review nailed it on the head. Not much new. Looks just like Fallout 3.By far the glitchiest game I have EVER played. (I'm here posting now while I'm waiting for my PS3 to restart as it just crashed for what must be over the 100th time from playing this game!) Found a few dialog glitches which would allow you to max level in about 30 mins.No where near the hardcore writing of fallout 2.

Yet...for some sick reason......I still love this frreakin game?!

I just wish the developers of this game had the same passion for this project as some if us gamers do. If I did so poorly at my job...I'd get fired. Lots of inexcusable mistakes with this one. Yet a must have for fallout fans. Oh well..Screwed again..I suppose.

All things considered, New Vegas was a rotten gaming experience. Never knowing when the game is going to freeze, crash, break, or when a major companion or character is going to disappear really took all the fun out of it. A four out of five is way too generous a rating for this piece of unfinished dreck.

I guess Bethesda figured to beat Black Ops to the shelves, forget about quality and patch it later. That is just not good enough. There are many thousands of offline gamers out there who are being ripped off. All I will say about that is that Bethesda is not going to sell me Fallout 4.

now im not sayin i dont like fallout new vwgas im just sayin i like the world of fallout 3 better because he gave me that sense of bleak hoplessness that i always thought a post apocalyptic world would feel like : the world is dead but humanity lives on both good and and bad. basically the world was an excellent case of "destroyed beauty"

I really really wanted to live FNV, but it's so incredibly glitchy. About once every 1.5 - 2 hours I get a console-crashing bug.

Short summary of some of the bugs I've encountered.- Leaving certain locations will cause your companions to delete their weapons. This is unrecoverable without going back to a prior save (assuming you notice quickly). - Randomly, the game will hang on a loading screen, requiring a reboot. This is somewhere around a 5% chance on each loading screen. (Make sure you save before going through a door.)- Modding some weapons will consistently cause the screen to go black.- Some NPCs disappear, even though they're still marked on the map. Any quest associated with that NPC just can't get completed. - Some quests need to be completed in a certain order, otherwise it breaks other quests.

Honestly, I don't think I've ever played fully-released game (not a beta) that has been so unstable, but I've learned my lesson. Don't pre-order an Obsidian Entertainment game. If it gets good reviews, feel free to buy it, but don't trust them to put out a polished product.

OK ok let's just take a DEEP breath and think this through. I made it to the vegas strip there was LITTLE TO NO glitches when i got there i think its just the amount of objects and people that screwed up the game. i think we ALL jumped the gun on this game YES there is some mess ups and i'm sure theyll fix it but all in all i take back alot of what i said and it became my most favorite game i love it it's growing on me so I'm apologising for bashing the game so feircly and so quickly im sure it has to do with platforms and what your doing in the game it's actually very simple once you get berrings and get into it give it a chance and it will work. I believe were all fighting the game instead working with it. you give alittle you get alittle thats how this game is working right now you push and pull your gonna get pushed and pulled back just take her hand and walk with it god i wish could email adam and morgan and tell them that

Long time lurker, just thought I'd show my disappointment for the DLC not available problem which is nixing saved games.I don't want to get into flaming about this and that but I feel so strongly about this. I have both a PS3 and an Xbox. Have had problems with both and had countless systems replaced.Recently picked up a new 360 Slim which came with this game. Was really getting back into the fallout way then the corrupt save game file hits with the DLC error.

Man i've never been so upset with a game. If they can't fix the savegame file, i'm sorry to say I won't be putting myself in this situation again.

The situation with DLC is getting way out of hand, something needs to be done. It's even affecting those that don't even download it. The video games industry should be ashamed of itself.

I've been an avid gamer since the 80's, put up with some pap games and some consoles that never took off but this DLC crap thats going down these days in just wrong.

Though I do admit there have been a few good exceptions like the GTA stuff and Undead Redemption, while I am not totally against it they need to address where it is heading so people are not taken advantage of.

Sorry for the rant but this game has touched a nerve. I loved Fallout 3, knew this game was pretty samey but I gave it a go. Loved what I got to play but theres no way i'm gonna do it all again.

They need to do a recall thats all there is to it I LOVE fallout im a hardcore fan and im just frustrated with this CRAP i mean it reminds me of when nintendo made an ET game like a million years ago and had to rush for xmas release they ended up burrying it in a desert MILLIONS of dollars wasted thats how this feels im so pissed and sad yeah it would be fine if it were done right its like they thought OH CRAP WE HAVE A NEW FALLOUT WE NEED TO DO and rushed it thats all it is rushed work I'm going to have to have my husband return the game AND im gonna tell game stop to pull it from their shelves if they can cause its a waste. im gonna try to get it exchanged for fallout three thats what i want i can handle that game i love that game. but this, this is just bad. i liked the first day i played it then i caeback to it today and had to START OVER its just so full of bugs and so screwed up its almost unplayable. sorry bethesda but you gotta get your crap together

I THOUGHT THEY LEARNED WITH FALL OUT 3..TO FIX MOST OF THIS STUFF BEFORE RELEASE .... NOT AFTER EVERYBODY COMPLAINS ..WHAT UP WITH ONCE THE MAIN QUEST OVER IT JUST LOADS U BACK TO UR LAST SAVE ????WOW COME ON PEOPLE .REALY.

I dont really care about glitches, hell, there is a glitch in Fallout 3 that happens to me all the time, a lot of the people's guns arn't in their hand... but are attached to their forearms. But i still love the game.

I understand the issues addressed but one thing that bothered me about this interview is the lack of discussion involving new additions. I mean nothing is groundbreaking in the genre but included information about factions reputations looking down iron sights (not a biggie but i enjoy it) and being able to modify weapons is something i would also include...

i have played almost every quest in this game, and so far i have to agree with this review. don't get me wrong, i am a avid fan of fallout, well besides that ps2 crap game. the game is very good, but it doesn't live up to the reputation of the fallout franchise, a lot of the quests (basically all of them) are go here and do that, but it doesn't really hold that much interest. i also disagree with the review when it talks about the beginning of the game, i actually found it very refreshing compared to the long opening to fallout 3. Although this is just my opinion.

Ahh again, one of G4's reviewers disappointed me and what's more disappointing, they actually publish and allowed this!Compare the pros and cons, bugs and glitch are easily repaired and not surprisingly found on a such large world that demands a good ample of GHZ and on the other hand, the storyline isn't the game it's self, the world of Fallout: New Vegas IS the storyline. If the storyline was all that matter in F3, then I would have stop playing it a month after, instead the world is amazing, I've played it almost non stop until this game came out

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